Animate Your Course Book with Engaging Activities

Submitted by Shelly Terrell on 19 February, 2014 - 07:51

I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can
learn. ~ Albert Einstein
Our course book is one tool to help us engage and inspire our students. Often, it
becomes our crutch. We lean on it when we lack time for lesson planning or fall behind
in our curriculum. It is easy and quick to use the activities laid out before us, but are
they the most engaging for our students? After my first year of teaching, I made a goal
to lean less on the course book and incorporate activities that would get students to
think about the content and make connections to the learning. Below are a list of 20
activities I have used to engage students. I challenge you to try one of these ideas a
week to help you bring your course book to life. Find these ideas explained in detail in
this webinar recording and feel free to download the slides in my presentation, Bringing
Your Textbook to Life. You will find more activities like these in my blog, Teacher
Reboot Camp and free newsletter.
20 Ideas and Resources
#1. TOC (Table of Contents) What do you know?

List the chapter titles on the board.

Under each title, students write down anything they know about the topic even if
it doesnt show up in the chapter.

Students stay around the board and guess who wrote what.

The student who wrote the info talks more about it.

This will get your students to tie prior learning to new learning they encounter
for those chapters.

Heres what this lesson looks like with my students on a white screen. This
would be easy to do on an interactive whiteboard or take pictures and upload to
Evernote.

#2. Passing Notes

Before studying a topic, have students write what they know about the topic on a
piece of paper or sticky note.

Students pass their notes to another student who has to write a question related
to the information on the sticky note.

Students pass their notes again to a different student. This student finds the
question or information in the chapter.

#3 Collaborative Class Bookmarking

Create a collaborative bookmarking account for students to contribute videos,

links, blog posts, podcasts and other resources they find about the topic.

In the past my students used Pinterest, because it is visually interesting.

Unfortunately, you cannot embed your Pinterest boards, therefore, I recommend
Listly, Educlipper, PearlTrees, or Livebinder. All these tools are free, allow
collaborative bookmarking, and have free mobile apps.

#4 Sticky Boards of Information

Before teaching a unit or chapter, create a sticky board using these free toolsLinoit or Padlet. Students dont have to register. They just need the link to your
wall to post information. With Padlet, you can password protect the wall. These
walls are embeddable and accessible on mobile devices.

You can have students find specific information to post on the wall. For
example, get students to find videos, podcasts, or images about the topic. You
can challenge them to find real world examples or resources that are less than 2
years-old.

#5 Photo and Video Challenges

For each unit or chapter, you can post photo and video challenges for students.
You can set these up through an Instagram or Flickr account. Basically, it will
look like this- Challenge: Snap a photo of a fraction, then write a word problem
inspired by this image.

#6 Students as Teachers

Divide students into small groups according to the number of sections of a

chapter. Each group is responsible for teaching that section to the class. In the
past, Ive done this with my World Religions and History classes. Students
followed checklists and guidelines. They had to create the assessment, have us
participate in a ritual, give a short presentation and assign homework that was
engaging (like play a game or respond to a video). Worksheets were not allowed.
Each task was assessed by group members, the class, and me. I gave them
examples of a good lesson before they did this. This was a project for later
chapters so they could learn by my example.

#7 Use Word Cloud Tools

Divide the readings in the chapter. Each student is given a section and asked to
create a word cloud with this text. Post these word clouds where each student
can have access (a blog, wiki, the board). Each student reads the word clouds
and must come up with a few questions they will seek the answer to in the text.
Find several Word Cloud tools and ideas in my Pinterest board.

#8 Use Graphic Organizers

Various graphic organizers like the KWL chart are great for getting students
engaged with information in a textbook! Check out a previous presentation and
the resources I collected here.

#9 Create Concept Maps

Popplet is a collaborative online mindmapping tool and a free app on the iPad.
Students can add images, videos, drawings, and links to support any topic. This
can be exported or embedded for them to study later.

#10 Create/Play Digital Games

Have students create their own online digital games related to the topic. Find out
how in my presentation, Level Up! Engaging Students by Having Them Create a
Digital Game

#11 Play Classroom Games

Find a classroom game to make it interesting! Many games listed here in my

Pinterest.

#12 Create/Play Board Games

Trivia Pursuit, Apples to Apples, Monopoly, Clue, Twister, and other board
games are great ways to teach concepts from the book and get students moving.

Students can create their own board games related to the topics at Boggles
World.

#13 Modernize Dialogues

Take dialogues or gap fills from the text and have students modernize them
either through role-plays or with video creation tools like Go Animate, Ben and
Tom Newsreporter, Sockpuppets and PuppetPals

#14 Make it into a Movie or Film Clip

Your students can create short films, movie previews, silent films and more.
Discover the process in this presentation, 123 Action! Videography in the
Classroom

#15 Use Polls

Poll students about chapter topics and post the findings to encourage discussion
and debate. Students can create their own opinion polls or poll another class to
collect data. They can use this data to create an infographic. Find several polling
tools here.

#16 Create Infographics

Have students collect data through a Google form or other free survey tool or
through research and show this through infographics. Find various lesson ideas
in my presentation on infographics.

Piktochart is my favorite free tool for creating infographics.

#17 Create Your Own Textbook or Mini EBooks

Encourage your students to collaborate to create multimedia books of each

chapter or as supplements to chapters.

They can store these online in Dropbox, on their desktops, mobile devices, flash
drives or tablets so they have the materials everywhere they go.

Several free sites support collaborative writing! Check for examples and tools
here!

#18 Create a Podcast

Your students can have ongoing radio shows or podcasts about the topics.
Discover the process in this presentation, On Air! Audio Projects for Learners.

#19 Translate it into a Comic

Your students can translate sections of the book into a comic. See my students
comic of Pride and Prejudice in slides 37-39.

#20 Invite a Guest Speaker

Have students learn from a guest speaker through Skype or Google Hangouts.
Many parents would be thrilled to share their expertise or try calling up a local
company and asking if they would visit your class virtually.

Find more ideas in Vicky Samuels post, Coursebooks as Guides; Lizzie Pinards post,
Course Books in the Classroom! Friend or Foe?, and Rachael Roberts post, The
Coursebook.